


what country, friends, is this?

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: the twelfth night au [5]
Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Biracial Character, Canon-typical Slavery, Copper Isles, Cultural Differences, Deals With The Devil, F/F, F/M, Families of Choice, Family, Female Friendship, Gen, Gods, Grief/Mourning, Or at least a local trickster god, Presumed Dead, Slavery, adopted characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 20:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21287678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: "I thank you for the information, sir," Rinie says. "But I'm still not sure how to address you.""Haven't you guessed yet?" His eyes are sparkling, but they are not kind."My uncle George calls you the Crooked God," Rinie says. Better bold than nothing at all. "But you might prefer to be known by another name?"***The Lioness's daughter makes a bet with Kyprioth of the Isles.
Relationships: Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau & Coram Smythesson, Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau/Delia of Eldorne, Cythera of Naxen & Delia of Eldorne, George Cooper & Nealan of Queenscove, George Cooper/Thayet jian Wilima, Keladry of Mindelan & Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak, Myles of Olau/Eleni Cooper, Winnamine Balitang/Mequen Balitang
Series: the twelfth night au [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1188721
Comments: 56
Kudos: 168





	what country, friends, is this?

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to a longer fic - called _give them wisdom that have it_ \- which I am working on, but which is not written yet. (Why can't fic write itself.) This fic, and _wisdom_, are made possible by alpha reading and context help from @avalencias and @dovebalitang, to whom I owe an enormous debt of gratitude.

**i.**

There is no good way to learn you have lost a sister. Kel feels an icy calm slide over her, a shield behind which she can weep, and Raoul's hand clasps her shoulder tightly. He is not fooled.

The squire standing beside her - wearing a burnoose, and a tunic in colours Kel recognises as those Zahir adopted when he was knighted - turns pale and sways.

"Rinie," she says, in a harsh, choked voice that threatens to disappear into nothing. Zahir grabs her by both shoulders, and manhandles her into a chair. 

"Put your head between your knees, squire," he says, equally harshly, and turns a hawk-eyed glare on Lord Wyldon, who looks as if he is sorry for it, but it can't be helped. "Are you sure, my lord?"

Lord Wyldon nods. His eyes dart to Kel, and then away.

Kel draws in a steady breath, and leans back very slightly. Lord Raoul increases the pressure of his hand in response, pushing back. 

"When Sir Merovec and Lady Adalia's ship did not make port in Legann, Lord Imrah raised the alarm," Lord Wyldon says. "Debris washed up near Pirate's Swoop and Baron George made an immediate search, but I am afraid there was no trace of any survivors." He inclines his head to Kel. "Lady Adalia’s body was found."

Kel swallows hard. "I would like permission to attend the funeral."

"Granted."

"What about Rinie?" the squire says, lifting her head, and now Kel recognises her: the grey eyes and fair hair of the younger Eleni of Olau, adopted daughter of Sir Alanna and Lady Delia. With her jaw set and her eyes hard she looks like the Lioness, blood relations be damned. Somewhere in the back of her stunned mind floats the memory of Adalia’s last letter - _I have a little apprentice, Sir Alanna's daughter; she's very quick with languages, I think she will make a fine secretary_. "My lord, did they find _my _sister's body?"

Lord Wyldon shakes his head silently.

"Leni," Zahir says quietly, kinder than Kel has ever known him. 

"No, sir," Squire Leni bites out. "Marinie swims like a fish and she has the luck of a - of a _hundred _northmen, and if they didn’t find her body, she isn't dead." She gulps, and pushes loose hair behind her ears. "My lords. Lady knight."

She gets up, though it's more than half a stagger. Her bow is perfect, and they all watch her leave in silence.

After a long pause, Zahir heaves a sigh. "I am sorry for your sister too, Mindelan."

"Thank you," Kel says. Her voice is rusty. She clears her throat. 

She finds Leni of Olau down by the water, skipping stones with unparalleled viciousness.

"It's not fair, is it?" Kel says. "My sister was a diplomat. Yours was a secretary. Neither of them ever looked at a battle in their lives, did they?"

Leni's latest stone flies from her hand and sinks instead of skipping. She swears as if she would rather cry instead.

"I passed up my last chance to see her because I wanted to go to the _stupid _horse fair," Leni chokes. Her next stone is thrown, not skipped. It sinks hard. "I said I'd see her at Beltane. I said - I said -"

"I think my horse ate Adalia’s last letter," Kel says. "I didn't think it would be the last one I'd ever get."

At sixteen, Leni has her adult height and is packing on muscle the way her mother taught Kel to. She's neither short nor skinny. But in their shared grief she is small enough that Kel can tuck her into the curve of her shoulder and listen to them both cry.

**ii.**

Delia didn’t take the time to change. Cythera would be struck by that, but she didn't take the time to change either, the last time they met in the chapel of the Goddess as Crone. Delia is wearing the same sky blue and white lace she was wearing this morning, before the news reached Corus, and there is a fine grey veil thrown over her head. But instead of flowers and jewels in the Goddess' offering bowl there's a bloody handkerchief and a single ivory chessman with silver details; a queen. 

Cythera kneels beside her, and waits.

"I cut my finger on a paper knife," Delia says. "It was an accident."

"I know," Cythera says, and rests her hand over Delia's, which is clasping a handful of the fabric of her skirt, so tightly it will wrinkle. Delia lets go of the cloth and laces her fingers with Cythera's, and grips until the flesh of Cythera's fingers goes white.

"I don't even know who to pray to," Delia says, and her head bows like it's weighed down with centuries. Her lovely, chiming voice is thick with tears. "My little girl. I can't even be sure she's dead."

Cythera hears, very faintly, a rattle like dice. But when she lifts her own head nothing seems to have moved.

**iii.**

There are sea charts and coastal maps all over the low table in the library where Grandfather Myles taught Ned and his sisters to play chess. Ned's not sure where the chessboard itself is.

"You're back early," says Grandfather Myles. He has his back to Ned, but he knows Ned's footsteps; he knows all of them, in the dark or the daylight, seeing or not.

"Grandfather Adam told me about Rinie," Ned says. His tears have long since dried, in the ride over the desert.

Grandfather Myles goes very still. "I asked Evin Larse to tell you."

"He didn't get to Eldorne. You should check on him." Ned looks at his feet; there's mud on his boots, but he didn't trouble to change or to do anything other than hand over his reins and run. His quiver and bow are still over his back and there are white shadows of dried sweat on his shirt and tunic.

"I will. Thank you for telling me." Grandfather Myles takes up a compass and turns it over in his hands. "So. What happened?"

"I came down from the hills with my boys," Ned says. "It was all quiet. Grandfather Adam might've said he was afraid of bandits, but there wasn't anything to write home about. Maybe he just wanted to annoy Mother. I went back for supplies and he met us in the courtyard with a letter. I don't know what it said exactly. But he laughed and - he laughed -"

Ned's voice stops and stutters. He takes the seat next to his grandfather and puts his head in his hands.

"He said," Ned continues, to the soft polished mahogany, "that one of his bitch daughter's useless whelps had gone down and drowned at sea, and good riddance, and he only wished he could get shot of the rest of us with so little trouble. And I should run home and weep at my mother's knee, if I could work out who she was."

Grandfather Myles has gone perfectly still.

"I know it's true," Ned says miserably, "that Rinie's dead. Ishtar joined the Voice yesterday evening and he confirmed it."

Grandfather Myles lays a hand on Ned's back. "I'm sorry, Ned."

"Are you sure, though? Did they find a body?"

"No," Grandfather Myles says heavily, putting his charts aside, and suddenly Ned knows what he was trying to guess and shudders. Dead or alive, the sea sometimes gives up its prey. But not Rinie, not yet; not Marinie. "Your sister Leni is convinced she's still alive, but I'm afraid there's little hope of that. If she were alive and in Tortall, we would know by now."

Ned says nothing for a long time. And then, a vicious whisper that (whether he knows it or not) sounds as if it came from Delia's mouth: "I want to make Grandfather Adam _pay _for what he said."

"Likewise," Grandfather Myles says, rubbing comforting circles on Ned's back. "But you may find it's not quite legal, Neddie. Duke Turomot would not look on it with a kindly eye."

"Well," Ned says. "I haven't finished my degree yet. And I haven't sworn any oaths."

Grandfather Myles smiles, broad and peaceable and completely humourless.

"Well," he echoes Ned. "Let's talk, my boy."

**iv.**

"Can you see anything?" Thayet asks. It takes Thom some time to realise that he's really hearing her with his actual, physical ears; for a second, with some hint of wild hope, he thinks he might finally be about to scry something with some relation to the whereabouts of his niece.

But no, it's Thayet sitting on a rock a respectable distance away, with her daughter hanging slightly behind. Kalasin is used to him, but she’s always been edgy around him when he’s in a mood, and he can hardly blame her. 

"No," Thom snaps, sharper than he meant to. Kalasin bites her lip and Thayet glares, and he is immediately sorry. He softens his voice on purpose. "No. I'm afraid not."

Thayet unrolls a towel on the rock next to her, and Kalasin opens the bag she's carrying to reveal food and water. Thom feels affection well up in his reluctant heart, and tries to hoist himself out of the seawater onto the rocks. It’s very difficult.

Marinie has been missing, believed dead, for a month: it's possible his common sense weighed too lightly against that. He has gone out too deep and risked the tide too much, and after an hour of scrying he is cold and clumsy. He drags on the rope he used to tether himself to shore and slips on the seaweed, and in the end Thayet has to climb down and pull him out, her bow-calloused grip strong. 

"Thank you," Thom says. The sunlight is dying in the cove; the orange light flickers flame-like on the blue-black sea, and Thom remembers another day, years ago now, when the Immortals War broke with killers off the coast of the Swoop and little Daine climbed into the sea to reason with a kraken.

Bless the child, she had more success then than he has had today. But maybe only the god-touched have that kind of luck.

His limbs are coming back to life in the warmth. Kalasin has brought biscuits she made herself. He stares out at the horizon and wills himself to be powerful enough to find Marinie, wherever she has gone.

"Go back up to the castle and tell Master Numair dinner is in half an hour," Thayet says to her daughter, and waits until the pattering of Kalasin's quick footsteps is quite gone before she turns to Thom. "Not even a body?"

The Baroness of Pirate's Swoop is still held the most beautiful lady in the Eastern Lands, by people who aren't trying to flatter Queen Cerenne; tanned golden by the summer sun of her husband's lands, hair pulled back in a practical ponytail, with the eyes of a woman who saw battle when she was just a girl, Thom remembers she's also one of the most alarming. Tortall's K'miri immigrant population calls her the daughter of Chavi Westwind, she who brings the storm and fears it not.

"No," Thom says, and his heart is very heavy. "Not even a body."

"And what does that mean?"

"If I knew," Thom says, "I would tell you."

He rubs his hands together to bring some more warmth into them, and eats another biscuit.

"If I knew," he says, through a mouthful of crumbs, "I'd go and fetch her home myself."

**v.**

In the garden that's still named for the last queen who loved it, Tortall's royal family and their attendants are taking the air. Eleni keeps an eye on her oldest charge, Princess Melissa, who is playing at the fan dance with Princess Shinkokami and Lady Yukimi, who assured Eleni that this fan - unlike all the others - is a completely blunt practice fan. Melissa likes the fan dances, the use of the glaive and the small knife, and even a little of Eleni’s own thread spellcraft. Eleni finds that a relief; Melissa is not destined for a Yamani marriage, but no matter where she goes, such lady's skills will come in useful. After the horrors of the Immortals War and the Scanrans, the queen needed little nudging from Eleni to encourage them in her daughters. Tortall's princesses defend themselves.

Lady Haname is watching Princess Shinkokami more than she's playing with the younger prince, but Liam is just happy to have part of the lady's attention, and somebody to play checkers with him. Queen Cerenne is keeping an eye on him too, waiting for him to grow tired after a long day of lessons and be swept off for a bath and bed. 

"I was sorry to hear about your granddaughter," Lady Haname says, when Melissa drops the fan and Shinkokami and Yukimi stop to explain something to her, and to demonstrate a movement slowly. "I visited the Wavewalker's temple this morning; I kept her in my prayers."

"Thank you," Eleni said, very quietly. Even with her eyes lowered she can feel Queen Cerenne watching her face.

Prince Liam has stopped playing checkers and is stacking the tokens into higher and higher towers, unaware of the undercurrents.

"She was a clever girl," Lady Haname says. "I thought her Yamani accent very impressive."

Eleni nods. "She enjoys - enjoyed studying languages. She was thinking of training as a diplomat."

"I hoped she would become a lady for Melissa," Queen Cerenne says, unexpectedly. The queen likes to think more than she speaks, and though Eleni has always known her kindness - especially in these last hideous weeks - the queen's thoughtfulness lies more in the prayer songs she has paid for at the Goddess' temple, the early summer flowers that have bloomed in Eleni's rooms, the musicians that have played Rinie's favourite dances, the fact that the clerks have quietly been obliged to record her loss as that of a trueborn daughter of Olau, when they have been so difficult about the adoption before. Eleni hears from her little ears in the palace that the small language library is being expanded, and that a plaque has been commissioned by Queen Cerenne herself. 

After all, there is no body for them to bury. The memorials permitted to them by religious law and custom are few.

"No princess should go abroad alone," Lady Haname says, very calmly, but Eleni thinks she is beginning to read her, and there is sympathy in those inscrutable dark eyes. "A lady in whom she can place her absolute trust is essential."

"I would have trusted Marinie with my daughter," Queen Cerenne says. "In truth, I haven't thought of any other candidates yet."

Eleni doesn't think Rinie could easily have been persuaded to leave Tortall entirely. She loves it too much to have left for adventure, like Lady Yukimi, and she lacks the drive to travel, like Uline of Hannalof, who turned down a prestigious marriage to Kieran haMinch in order to follow Princess Anjela to Tyra. But, given a few years to decide where her future lies, she might have chosen to leave for duty. Like Lady Haname, who is as much a spy and a diplomat as a poet, an adviser, and an organiser of royal wardrobes. 

Rinie had such a bright future; it's the past tense of the verb which hurts them all so.

"What's wrong?" asks Prince Liam, pushing over a tower of checkers so that they clatter to the floor, and clambering awkwardly over to her. "Are you sad?"

"Yes," Eleni says. "I'm afraid I'm very sad."

He wipes her eyes clumsily but effectively with the sleeve of his shirt, and wraps his arms around her shoulders. "I’m sorry."

"Thank you, Liam," Eleni whispers, and closes her eyes so she does not have to see the dreadful sympathy on the other women's faces.

**vi.**

"What are we doing out here?" Alanna demands, staring around the Trebond Gorge, so recently the site of fearsome battle and now empty of everything but grey rock and pine trees - except for herself, Coram, and (somewhere around here) a Rider Group kicking about in the trees, looking for traces of recent occupation. Summer is coming: campaigning season.

"You needed out," Coram says baldly. "I gave you out."

He's an old man now, Coram; in his sixties at least, and looks it. Duke Gareth refers to the two of them collectively as the old campaigners, and Coram laughs. He led the defence of Trebond, but his sons and daughters fought the battles.

He has a lot of sons and daughters. He and Rispah didn't sit still. They're a nice crowd, but overwhelming. There's a gangly boy who makes Alanna think of her Ned, a spitfire archer who reminds her of Leni. None of them remind Alanna at all of sweet Rinie, not even graceful Thayine who went to the same parties as her and studied with the same dancing-masters, and Alanna doesn't know whether to be grateful for that or sorry.

Starlight jigs under Alanna, nervous in a way that Moonlight never was, having learned better the hard way; but Starlight’s a young horse, and Daine hasn't yet had the opportunity to explain things to her. Alanna settles consciously in the saddle.

"There's nothing for me to do out here," Alanna points out.

"Well," Coram says patiently. "At least out here you can have a good yell without disturbing anyone."

"Yell at who?" Alanna snaps. "There's no-one to blame for - for this."

"Who’s saying you have to yell at anyone special?" Coram returns, and takes a good hold of Starlight's reins. "And you should say her name, lass. Remember her. You've a good record of not making your father's mistakes; don't start here."

"Marinie," Alanna says, and it comes out in a hoarse whisper. She clears her throat, and says, in a voice which wobbles disgracefully: "Rinie. My daughter, Rinie, she's dead, and there's no-one I can - can blame."

She buries her head in her hands for a moment, and then she climbs down from her horse.

"Hold Starlight, would you?" she says, and then paces away a little, and lifts her head to the constrained grey sky and screams until her lungs give out and she falls to her knees.

When she gets up, perhaps half an hour later, her eyes are red and sore and her throat feels like it got polished with sand instead of her armour, but she no longer feels as if she might explode at a touch. The horses look quite shocked. Coram doesn’t.

Alanna mounts up again.

"Sorry about that," she says to Coram.

"Nah, lass," Coram says, and suddenly looks older than he really is. "It took us hard, too."

And then Alanna remembers, and feels terribly selfish: for all the sons and daughters who cluster at Coram's shoulders, there are still two missing. 

**vii.**

"I thought you were on Scanra," says Neal, eyeing the drifts of paperwork across George's desk. George is very carefully taking apart a small booby-trapped chest the size of Neal's joined hands; Neal leans over his mentor's shoulder to inspect it, then leans thoughtfully out of the way again.

"I was, but we don’t need so many people on it now that things are quieter," George says. "You're absolutely sure Kel got the blueprints for those bastard things, lad? Wouldn’t like them to surprise us again when summer comes."

"I watched her burn them myself," Neal assures him, for the fifteenth time. "So. Copper Isles?"

"King Oron is permanently winding up for trouble," George says. A poisoned dart flies from the roof of the chest and they both duck. "Shit."

A brief pause while George disables the mechanism. 

"And he specifically can't be doing with Delia because he blames her for Princess Josiane's death, so the Copper Isles are my manor now. No sense in borrowing trouble; Topabaw already tried to have Delia killed once."

"Really?"

"Really. You can imagine how Alanna took that."

Neal winces. Seeing his knight-master stamp around Tortall with a face like grim death for her daughter lost at sea, he can quite easily imagine her reaction to the attempted murder of her… of Lady Delia. (A squire for four years and yet Neal still has no idea if they are truly married, theological improbability or no theological improbability, but they act like it.) Sir Alanna was never speechless when she was kicking him around the countryside, but in her grief she is silenced. 

And also very, very angry. Neal has never heard her raise her voice to Leni in anger before, but the girl still insists her sister is alive, and they all know that's not true. It's been more than a month without even a rumour of Rinie, living or dead - and not for want of searching. Zahir has resorted to removing his squire to the borderlands and running her up and down mountains, with limited effect.

"So what have you got here?" Neal asks, picking up a sheaf of papers and flicking through it. "Port report, port report, port report - do you have a spy in every harbour?"

"I have several," George corrects, still occupied with the chest. "You're welcome to 'em and all."

Neal takes a seat, and starts to sift through them. It's better than thinking about the mischievous little girl who used to wheedle sweets out of him, grown halfway to an adult only to choke and drown in the choppy waters off Tortall’s south-western coast.

The chest has sprung open and George has changed his heavy gloves out for fine thin ones that are almost a second skin when Neal lays down the second-last report and announces: "These are all incredibly dull."

"Nothing interestin'?"

"A few things. I made notes." Neal glances down at the last report. "Oh. Well, this might be useful, I suppose? Oron's banished the Duke and Duchess Balitang."

George lets out a disrespectful hoot. "Exactly as stupid as I thought he was. Mequen Balitang never had a rebellious thought in his head. Idiot."

Neal didn't ask if Duke Mequen, or King Oron, was the idiot in question. "He married a raka lady of high birth."

"I noticed. She's dead. And she had daughters; the luarin won't be ruled by a half-raka queen, not unless something extraordinary happens. If Oron sees a pair of teenage girls as a threat, he's more scared of his own shadow than I thought."

Neal reads quickly down the passenger manifest for the Balitangs' ship, and stops, and then reads down it again slowly. He reads it once more.

When he looks up, George is looking at him. 

"This says." Neal stops, and clears his throat, and coughs. "This says the Balitangs took a retainer of twenty slaves and senior servants - all family servants of long standing, except for the daughters’ maid, a part-raka girl, fresh-caught."

"And?" George says. "They must be low on cash if they took so few. That's a tiny household for the Isles. But it's easy enough to predict that Oron drained them dry; don't need to be Myles to see that coming."

"You read it," Neal says, shoving the paper at him. "I can't believe my own blasted eyes. I think I'm seeing things. Leni's attitude is catching."

George takes the paper, smooths it out absently, and reads aloud, slow, slow.

"Lady Saraiyu and Lady Dovasary’s maid, part-raka, a Tortallan slave of seventeen years of age. New to the household and recently caught but speaks fluent Kyprish." There's a very long pause, and George's hazel eyes turn impossibly wide. "Name... Rina Fisher."

"It can't be," Neal blurts out. "We're playing tricks on ourselves."

"Maybe so," George says, "and maybe no. How many seventeen-year-old Tortallan girls with names like that speak fluent Kyprish? Not many - not even on the coast."

He copies the entry in a rough, quick hand, and folds the copy and seals it. "There's only one way to find out."

**viii.**

It's very quiet in the slave dormitories of Balitang House, or at least as quiet as any communal sleeping situation ever is. The new girl has been allotted a bed of her own and given hot water and good soap to wash with, and a clean dress, shift and sash to change into; she seems appropriately grateful, but timid and self-effacing. Chenaol is casually protective of her, warning off the over-friendly with a wooden spoon, showing the girl what she can eat without burning her mouth, explaining in asides things that a girl who looks like a Copper Islander will be expected to know.

"Leave off, Fesgao," she said earlier, when one of the guardsmen was curious about the girl's accent. "She's fresh-caught, of course she's shy, and she's Tortallan born and bred, so don't expect her to understand your nasty city slang. It's a miracle she doesn't eat her consonants alive."

"I thought there were no slaves in Tortall," Fesgao said.

"There aren't," said the girl, soft but distinct.

"Talk like a lady, don't you?" Fesgao said, startled.

"Sometimes," the girl said, slipping into broad Port Legann, and watching the guardsman relax a little. "I was a lady's maid, before the - before the pirates."

Fesgao exchanged a glance with Chenaol. "And which of our ladies will you be serving?" he asked.

The girl looked at her feet. "I don't know."

"They gave her away," Chenaol said to Fesgao. "We'll see where Her Grace decides to put her, but I think the smart money is on Lady Dovasary. You'll like our Lady Dove, Rina," she added. "She's quiet, like you. Don't eat any of that without putting some more yoghurt on your plate!"

Rina Fisher goes to bed in the dormitory and does not snore. (A lady doesn't.) Marinie of Olau wakes in the middle of the night, to find herself floating above her body, and for some reason she is not shocked.

She floats out of a window, because she can, and then floats down into the open entry courtyard, because it's there. This is a very beautiful house. She likes it, though she would like it a good deal better if it weren't for the slave collar, which currently doesn't itch. In fact, Rinie realises, touching her throat, she seems not to be wearing it. That’s good, because - in all her tentative plans for escape - it and its choking spells are a problem she's yet to solve. She does, however, seem to be wearing Mama's amethyst set and her best purple gown from last Midwinter, when she danced with Lachren of Mindelan and he picked her up and spun her around like she weighed nothing. So this is most likely a dream, rather than a mysterious and unlikely route to freedom.

It's still a significant improvement over the busy dormitory. It’s a much greater improvement over the crowded Rajmuat slave pens and the insidious fear first that she would be identified and given to the Isles’ spymaster for breaking, and then that she would be sold off to a brothel, and then - when she didn't sell - that she would be thrown overboard and left to drown. Rinie swims extremely well, but not with her throat cut - or, worse, in shackles, left to thrash and sink while sharks close in, drawn by her panic.

Rinie smooths her hands over the purple silk of her dress and pushes the nightmares away with a long calming breath that shudders, and feels just as unpleasantly visceral as it does when she's awake. She raises her head and scrutinises the colourful tiles of the courtyard critically. She likes Duchess Winnamine's taste in furnishings.

In the perfumed garden there is a strange man - epicene, medium height, salt and pepper hair, indeterminate age, raka - sitting on the edge of his fountain with his feet in the water, a remarkably gaudy sarong kilted up so that it doesn’t get wet. He's wearing too much jewellery, all of which is very ugly, and he seems to be glowing, which is very odd. 

"Lady Marinie of Olau," he says, twisting to smile at her. 

Rinie curtseys automatically. "Sir, I think I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance." She no longer feels dreamy; her mind is whirling all of a sudden. How does he know who she is?

"No, indeed," he says, and preens. "You haven't previously had that honour. But your mother knew me - your birth mother, I mean. Vijaya."

Rinie freezes. Oh, Goddess.

"But I fear that was ambiguous too," the man says mournfully. "Let me clarify. The mother that bore you, Vijaya, was a devotee of mine. Your father was indeed a perfectly solid and normal Tortallan fisherman."

"I thank you for the information, sir," Rinie says. "But I'm still not sure how to address you."

"Haven't you guessed yet?" His eyes are sparkling, but they are not kind.

"My uncle George calls you the Crooked God," Rinie says. Better bold than nothing at all. "But you might prefer to be known by another name?"

"Indeed," he says amiably. "Call me Kyprioth, Marinie - or Rinie, as your brother and sister call you, Rina, as the servants here call you, or... mm." He smiles again, and claps his hands, and in the space between his palms a number of brightly coloured baubles appear. Rinie somehow knows that they are not solid. "I’ve heard a lot of prayers on your behalf, young lady. Granted that many of them were not exactly meant for my ears, but then I don't think my sister was paying much attention... even to such a favourite as your mother. I mean Alanna, in this instance. Alanna the Lioness. You are well-provided with loving mothers - it's a shame you're so far from their care now."

Rinie's heart sinks to roughly the same level as her dancing slippers. 

"Oh, little one," Kyprioth says. "I feel for you, really, I do. To be enslaved and trapped as you are now. The Balitangs are good people, and in one or two of them I take a special interest. But the life of a slave is a very uncertain one, and with your family so convinced you are dead, the chances of rescue are not high, are they?"

Rinie keeps her mouth shut and folds her hands politely.

"So quiet," Kyprioth says. "Nothing to say?"

"I was wondering what had happened to my prayers," Rinie says evenly. "That's all."

"Careful, aren't you?"

Rinie dips a second curtsey.

"Well, it was Vijaya who prayed to me on your behalf first. And since you are now here, and in a position to receive my help, I wonder if we might do each other a favour."

"What sort of a favour?" Rinie asks. What could she possibly do for a god?

"Oh, there is a bet I should like to win," Kyprioth says carelessly, "and I would like you to help me win it. So suppose I bet you that you can keep the two oldest Balitang girls alive for the summer - until the autumn equinox. My personal protection would be on you throughout, so you won't be accidentally sold off or run down by a cart - that would never do - but you will have to keep the girls alive through your own efforts. At the very first light of dawn the day after the equinox, you would be free to go."

"Go where?" Rinie asks, politely. From everything she's heard and read, it's best to specify these things. Especially in strange, open-ended bargains like this, where the consequences of the deal have not been fully explained. What kind of bets do gods make? Aunt Daine never mentioned bets.

He twinkles at her. "Home, of course. I will take you myself."

Rinie's heart leaps. _Home_. She can smell cool spring rain on the wind, hear her sister laughing, feel Mother hold her tight and Mama shake her gently and say roughly that she should never worry them like that again. Ned's voice and Mother's green gowns and the palace rising out of the royal forest, the rolling desert sand and Mama's golden armour gleaming like legends...

But how is she supposed to keep two teenaged girls alive for a summer? She would have said they were as safe as any nobles under King Oron's eye, at least until Lady Saraiyu's prospective marriage becomes a political toy. Clearly they are not, or this conversation would not be happening. Is there some kind of political threat to them that Kyprioth expects her to steer them away from, somehow, as a confidante or guide? And what happens if she fails?

She swallows hard. "And if I were to consider myself too lowly to accept your generous offer?"

Kyprioth stirs the baubles with a finger. "Why, I would let these go, and hope that at least one reaches its destination. But my sister is much occupied, Lady Marinie, I'm not sure how much she could help you anyway. And I myself would not be able to offer further assistance." He shrugs elaborately.

Rinie forcibly gets a grip on herself. She must not panic now. "And suppose I were to lose?"

"Do you really think you're going to lose?"

Rinie folds her hands tighter. "I like to be prepared for all eventualities."

"A prudent girl, as well as a clever one," Kyprioth approves. "I can't say it’s my style, but I suppose this is why your mother Delia has never been one of mine. To answer your question, in that event, I wouldn't help you further. But you would still be safe with the Balitangs, which is far better than many another place you might have been, and will offer you far more scope to - say - get a message as far as the Tortallan embassy. Duke Mequen is influential at court in his own rather boring way and his wife and older daughters go into society. But it may take you... some time. The current ambassador is on the verge of departure and isn’t yet slated for replacement."

Rinie closes her eyes for a moment. She had known the ambassador was due to leave, but not that it would be so soon, and reaching his residence was a key part of her earlier plans.

Kyprioth lets her think.

Rinie folds her hands. Her palms are starting to sweat but her breathing is even. She lets out a controlled breath, and then says: "I accept the bet. To keep Lady Saraiyu and Lady Dovasary Balitang alive until the autumn equinox."

The words ring like a struck gong. Rinie doesn't look around for something she knows will not be there.

"Wonderful! Do you know, I genuinely wasn't sure you would?" Kyprioth beams and claps his hands. The baubles - her prayers, and her mothers', and those of everyone that love her - disappear. "You're so much less predictable than your Uncle George. Welcome to the Copper Isles, Marinie."

She curtseys again, for lack of anything else to do, and lowers her eyes to the paving. "Thank you."

"And consider this a gift," Kyprioth says, "to show good faith."

The sky is lightening to charcoal as it does before the dawn, and Rinie is absolutely certain that she doesn't want to accept a gift from Kyprioth until she's won her bet. "That would be far too kind of you; I couldn't possibly accept."

"Oh, no. This is something that was already yours." Kyprioth kisses her forehead like a father might, bestowing the promised protection; it rolls over her like a salt sea mist. She has only just caught her breath when he draws back and says casually: "When you were born, Vijaya named you _Tasiyu_; it means 'of the sea'. Not unlike _Marinie_, in fact. I always thought that was amusing."

"I'm very amused myself, sir," Rinie says, trying not to be shaken, crushing the polite thank-you that rises to her lips; she can't risk an acknowledgement.

"Well, sweet dreams," Kyprioth says carelessly. "You'll need to be wide awake to win our bet."

She wakes with the dawn, and she's wearing a printed cotton shift not a purple ball dress, and there's a slave collar chafing her neck, and for several long moments she doesn't know if her name is Rinie or Marinie or Rina or Tasiyu, or all of the above.

But she does know one thing. She's alive, and she's going to stay that way.


End file.
